I've been beta testing these for some time and have found them quite interesting to use. They are as accurate as any other altimeter I've flown, based on flying them alongside tried and proven devices. The production version is very small - about as long as, but narrower than a PerfectFlite FireFly.

The interface application has a few rough edges yet but it's quite usable. At the moment the iOS and Android versions are essentially identical in operation and even in how they look.

The FS Mini differs from AltimeterThree in that the main storage location for your historical data is the flight logs section of the FlightSketch web site rather than your phone or tablet. The interface for this is also a little rough around the edges - or it will be once there are two hundred more of these things out in the wild. But all of this can, and I expect will, be dealt with.

On Android, even though you can store files locally on your device they are buried rather deeply in the file structure. On iOS they show up in the Files app in their own folder. There they are .csv files, just like what you upload to the web log. As such they can be pulled into a spreadsheet program for further analysis or graphing, not unlike the .xlsx files that AltimeterThree exports.

Because they are bare boards, not in a case, more care is needed when flying them in other than a dedicated payload section, but it can be done.

Anyway, at that price they are simply amazing. In fact they would be pretty amazing at twice the price or more.

Gone now. Russ will have another batch built I'm sure. But I expect it will be a couple of weeks at least.

I ordered mine the second the email came that they were back in stock. I happened to be at the computer so I placed the order and started this thread. Each time I refreshed, the number in stock dropped considerably, even though very few were online on the forums. It was only me on YORF and just a handful on TRF that were logged in.

It looks like a nice little product with a pretty good following already. Russ seems like the type that will continue to tweak things to make it better as time passes.

They did go fast! I was notified this morning, fiddled around too long, and when I looked they were sold out.

But, since it is so cold here, and snow and ice everywhere, I suspect Iíll not be needing one for awhile ... maybe March or April!

I did score pretty well on the Estes Black Friday sale. Some incredible deals to be had. A couple of these kits I have, but the prices are just too good not to consider them for scratch-building parts, like the ram ducts on the Conquest. I bought two Honest Johns. This is one of my favorite kits. Iíve built one, and already had a spare. Now I have three.

Since shipping was free at $50, I stopped once I passed that amount. It would have been easy to just keep going and going and ...

It looks like a nice little product with a pretty good following already. Russ seems like the type that will continue to tweak things to make it better as time passes.

I've had several iterations of the hardware during beta (beginning in late March). The last two have really made it nicer (and more rugged and smaller/lighter). The firmware has been improved a number of times over that period as well. I have also seen the interface/control app improve greatly, especially with the move to the "universal" code base (iOS/Android).

I suspect after Russ gets out from under the backlog of shipping 200 of these out he will be further improving the firmware, the interface app and the flight log on the web site, as well as working on some interesting follow-on products. And, of course, he'll be shipping out the next batch as well when they come.

One FS Mini has also been sent to the NAR contest board chairman for his testing, so at least the process of getting it approved for NAR competition (and record-setting) use is underway.